Even among paleontologists it was not unknown. In 1956 a professor at Oregon State University, M. W. de Laubenfels, writing in the Journal of Paleontology, had actually anticipated the Alvarez theory by suggesting that the dinosaurs may have been dealt a death blow by an impact from space, and in 1970 the president of the American Paleontological Society, Dewey J. McLaren, proposed at the group's annual conference the possibility that an extraterrestrial impact may have been the cause of an earlier event known as the Frasnian extinction.
即使在古生物學(xué)界，也不是沒有這種看法。1956年，俄勒岡州立大學(xué)教授M·W·勞本弗斯在《古生物學(xué)雜志》中寫道，恐龍有可能受到了來自太空的致命的撞擊，實際上是阿爾瓦雷斯理論的前奏；1970年，美國古生物學(xué)會會長杜威·J·麥克勞倫在該學(xué)會的年會上提出，來自天外的撞擊有可能是早年所謂“弗拉斯尼世滅絕”的原因。
As if to underline just how un-novel the idea had become by this time, in 1979 a Hollywood studio actually produced a movie called Meteor ("It's five miles wide... It's coming at 30,000 m.p.h.—and there's no place to hide!") starring Henry Fonda, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, and a very large rock.
好像是為了強調(diào)這種見解此時早就不新鮮，一家好萊塢電影制片廠在1979年拍攝了一部名叫《隕石》的電影（它8公里寬……以每小時4.8萬公里的速度飛來──我們無處躲藏！）。該電影由亨利·方達、納塔利·伍德、卡爾·莫爾登以及一塊大巖石主演。
So when, in the first week of 1980, at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Alvarezes announced their belief that the dinosaur extinction had not taken place over millions of years as part of some slow inexorable process, but suddenly in a single explosive event, it shouldn't have come as a shock.
那么，1980年的第一個星期，當(dāng)阿爾瓦雷斯父子在美國科學(xué)促進協(xié)會的一次會議上宣布，他們認為恐龍滅絕不是某個緩和而又不可阻擋的過程的組成部分，發(fā)生在幾百萬年以前，而是一次突然發(fā)生的爆炸性事件的結(jié)果，大家不該再感到吃驚。
But it did. It was received everywhere, but particularly in the paleontological community, as an outrageous heresy.
但是，大家深感吃驚。誰都認為這是一種不可思議的邪說，尤其在古生物學(xué)界。
Well, you have to remember, Asaro recalls, "that we were amateurs in this field.
“哎呀，你不得不記住，”阿薩羅回憶說，“我們在這個領(lǐng)域是外行。
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